The 3 months break after my year 1 in National University of Singapore was utilised fully into the planning and execution of various initiatives from Punggol CC YEC and Rent Cars Singapore. The Punggol CC YEC had completed 2 PAYM Loves Red events in the month of July and August!

Looking forward, academic year 2014/2015 is starting 2 days time and it is time for me to post what have I went through in academic year 2013/2014. As mentioned in my previous NUS post, I took the following modules in semester 1.

I withdrew from CS2100 in semester 1 before week 7(due personal reasons in that semester) and hence retaking the module again in semester 2. A special mention to FMC1201 by Prof YC Tay, I truly enjoyed the discussion conducted in the weekly 3 hours tutorial.

Looking forward, I am all geared up to start my semester in year 2 with

PAYM Loves Red 2014 was launched by Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean on 5 July 2014 at Sengkang CC. A total of 141 projects by the youth volunteers will be conducted during the span of 2 months and I am proud that Punggol CC YEC had organised 2 PAYM Loves Red in 2014.

PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks
In conjunction with Bedok Reservior Punggol’s Red & White Picnic Under the Stars @ Hougang MRT station open field, Punggol CC YEC held its PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong was the GOH of the event. PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks had seen a total of close to 2,100 youth outreach on the day itself with close to 20 youth volunteers from Holy Innocents’ High School. There were a total of 12 life-size kampong games (which include eraser war big as 10 shoeboxes, pick up sticks as tall as 10 year old young kid, skipping ropes and more), photo taking booth, face-painting, balloon sculpturing, gift redemption counter for those who completed the Youth Challenge and musical performance by the youth groups(which includes Punggol CC IAEC, Cornflake City and Vincent Lum) at the Busking Corner.

It was also an honour to have PM Lee Hsien Loong visiting the YEC booth during his tour at the carnival to understand what the club has been doing so far and knowing what are the upcoming events. We also took the rare opportunity to present a gift for him and his wife that was handmade by us with a message from the youths after getting him to pen down his wishes for the youth! We also took a selfie with him just before he left!

Some photos from the PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks event.

PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks Eraser War

PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks Jenga!

PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks Pickup Sticks!

PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks Presenting our gift to PM Lee!

PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks A selfie with PM Lee!

PAYM Loves Red @ Community YOUthSparks Message from PM Lee!

PAYM Loves Red @ Holy Innocents’ High School
On 8 August 2014, Punggol CC YEC team went down to Holy Innocents’ High School to celebrate PAYM Loves Red @ HIHS. Punggol CC YEC stepped in this year to allow the 20 odds pioneer generation beneficiaries from the Lions Befriender to join in the annual fund-raising carnival and to celebrate Singapore’s 49th birthday! PAYM Loves Red shirt and a Singapore flag were also distributed to all secondary 2 students (whom run all the 30 odd carnival stores ranging from games to food sales). Bedok Reservoir-Punggol CCC chairman, Victor Lye, was also present that morning with the YEC members. The day was started with a parade by the school’s uniform groups in the school parade square following a National Day concert by various performance groups in the school hall.

I was attempting to “edit” .htaccess file to make some url redirection for a page and I realised I wasn’t unable to locate the file in my web root. The first instinct is that I didn’t have any .htaccess file and I decided to create one. However, I was given an error that ERROR: Could not create file “.htaccess” in path. File exists..

This indeed confused me as I cannot locate the file. Upon further probing, I realised what was wrong. You have to check on the option Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) when you open up File Manager in your cPanel.

Most of the NUS students should have received an email from the NUS Computer Centre that we will be getting a lifelong email hosted on Office 365! What’s more, it is going to be 50GB huge! They are going to come with Lync and OneDrive as well! However Lync and OneDrive are only for current students. This implies that we no longer have access to those services, except for email, after graduation!

The email domain that we are using right now @nus.edu.sg will be valid till 31 December 2014.

The new email domain for NUS students will be @u.nus.edu.
The new email domain for Duke-NUS students will be @u.duke.nus.edu.
The new email domain for Yale-NUS students will be @u.yale-nus.edu.sg.

I am doing one of the tutorial in CS2100 in NUS SoC and one of the questions require us to convert between binary and gray codes.

I have decided to write a simple tutorial on how to convert from binary to gray codes.

What is Gray Code?“….is a binary numeral system where two successive values differ in only one bit. The reflected binary code was originally designed to prevent spurious output from electromechanical switches.”
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_code

What is Binary Code?A binary code represents text or computer processor instructions using the binary number system’s two binary digits, 0 and 1.
~http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binary_code

Its been a month plus since I ORD’ed and matriculated into National University of Singapore(NUS). You can refer to my ORD post here (ORD LO). Week 0 was on 5 August 2013 and our official lessons started a week later on 12 August 2013. First 2 weeks are purely just lectures and sectional teaching(just like lectures) and during these 2 weeks, we are bidding for our tutorials and lab slots. This semester is 13 weeks long for me(inclusive of 1 week eLearning and 1 week recess week(on week 7)).

In my first semester of year 1, I took the following modules.

MA1301 – INTRODUCTORY MATHEMATICS

CS1020 – DATA STRUCTURES AND ALGORITHMS I

CS2100 – COMPUTER ORGANISATION

IS1105 – STRATEGIC IT APPLICATIONS

SSA2209 – GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS OF SINGAPORE

Besides CS2100 which I spent 211 points to bid for it from my Programme Account and SSA2209 which I spent 50 points. The rest were pre-allocated and 1 points for each were deducted from my Programme Account. Its interesting how we have to fight for the modules that we would want to take. This is something very different from what we have in polytechnic.

I am entering week 5, which is the e-learning week for this semester. I would say that the whole ecosystem of NUS is very different from Temasek Polytechnic. No more caregroup system, you are now “given more responsibility” for your own education. No more checking of homework by tutors, if you do not participate actively in class and finish up the tutorials, you are going to pile up your backlogs and before you know it, its already exam.

To end off, some useful links that would benefit a new student or existing undergraduate.